Chapter 44

As I looked out over the land we'd leased on or around Kerrville Texas all I could think of was Yogi Berra, because this was damned sure like deja-vu, all over again, and that wasn't all. If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else was another of his famous quotes that fit here nicely, even though we'd come back to where we knew we'd left from. We sure as hell hadn't known where we'd been going, or when we'd been going.

Back in the cave the women were trying to get breakfast started and I suggested we move the cooking and serving back to the original site. They agreed, and thirty minutes later we had a cooking fire making coals and soon enough there were frying pans on the fire and eggs and bacon cooking.

Olivia, Carolyn, Lindsay, Nancy, Hope, and Charity didn't think very much had gone on yet, but their time would come when we struck out for home. I was sure they'd be surprised to see what had become of Texas and the dusty trails they'd been accustomed to as roads. No doubt they'd be a little shocked to see our home too.

As a matter of fact they were getting a dose of the future right now as they watched Selene opening several of the biscuit tubes and placing the biscuits on a cookie sheet and then running them into the oven. They ain't seen nothing yet.

After breakfast was over they all helped me move the horses and mules out into the electric fence pasture and to a woman the new girls wondered how such a tiny piece of wire would hold them in. I invited Nancy to touch it and after she did she quit wondering right away. All the rest had to give it a try too. There were a lot of yelps until their curiosity was satisfied.

My next trick was extracting one of the four-wheelers we'd bought and towing the water pump trailer down to the river. When I had it in place I took hold of the hose and eased the fourwheeler back up the hill, dragging out the hose behind me. I put the end in one of our watering tubs and since Hope and Charity were standing there watching me I asked them to take over the duty of aiming the hose. I was back down to the river in a flash and started the motor. I let it run until I could hear Hope telling me it was enough. I left everything in place for now and hurried back up the hill.

Since there was no mad rush for water by the stock I figured it would be ok to let them drink their fill. I wasn't worried about the mules anyway and none of the horses seemed to be overdoing it.

We spent most of the day moving things out of the fifty-three foot van so we could put the wagons I'd bought from John Johnston in it and then we packed it back up.

After the noon meal Jerrilyn and Jacky let our newbies in on the secret. They explained that it was now June of 2008 and of course they didn't get much of a rise out of them. I knew it would be hard for them to understand or prepare themselves for what was to come, but I also knew we could keep them close and out of trouble.

We lounged around for the rest of the afternoon doing a little packing, but since we were going to spend one more night here the only thing we did that took much work was rolling the helicopter out of the cave, and it really wasn't so much of a job.

Christine did a little phone shopping while we were doing not much. She ordered three more trucks and three more reefer trailers. We hadn't used the reefers while we were on this trip, but they hadn't been in the way either and the girls decided we'd be better off with the units than without them. I wasn't so sure we'd be better off without the seventy-thousand dollars the three reefer units came to, but what the hell? It was only money.

Toward the end of the day Jerrilyn asked me to hook up the water for showers and I did. It only required me to hook the watering hose up to the shower/horse trailer and start the pump. We let it have half an hour for the water to get hot and then the showers were on for real. Nancy, Carolyn, Lindsay, Hope, and Charity had a ball washing me and letting me wash them and we were all spic and span before bedtime. I did my part to get everyone hot and sweaty again and considered myself a hit by the time they settled down to sleep.

We were up and at 'em earlier the next morning and I was happy to see breakfast taking shape earlier in the day. We finished eating and then went directly into loading up everything mode. Jan and Sharon took off about noon and I could finally see some amazement on the faces of our newbies. We finished the loading and headed out about five PM. Luckily there was still plenty of sunlight to let us get back to a real road and we made our way merrily back toward East Texas. We pulled in around four in the morning and I was happy that it looked like all the construction was finished.

We didn't park the trucks on the new concrete floor of the big garage yet, but we did back the horse trailer/showers close to the gate into the pen and we put out plenty of hay for the stock and then we walked into the house.

Our newbies were amazed again with the lights and also with the refrigerator. The new bathroom was finished so there was plenty of room for all of us to shower at one time. Jan, Sharon, and Jenny even got out of bed where they'd been asleep and joined us. Thankfully everyone was ready to go to sleep when we were clean and dry. It wasn't that I was shirking my duty, but dammit, I was tired.

Thankfully everyone got out of bed the next morning without waking me. They came to fetch me when breakfast was on the table and I noticed it was around noon.

After we'd finished we sat around and talked about what had just happened. Of course we tried to figure out what had happened and we came to the conclusion we'd been put back in time for a few weeks. No mystery there since we'd known it while we were there. Why and how were the big questions and we didn't even have small answers for them.

We decided it had something to do with where we were when we left on our magical mystery tour. We didn't have any facts about it, but it was just a feeling we shared. Of course we were all excited we'd been given this opportunity and I got the feeling we all wanted it to happen again. We did want to be better prepared next time though.